Zoho flaunts price edge

Zoho, the cloud-based enterprise solution provider, is betting on Indian businesses looking at cost-effective information technology.

By Pinak Ghosh in Chennai

Published 26.07.17

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Chennai, July 25: Zoho, the cloud-based enterprise solution provider, is betting on Indian businesses looking at cost-effective information technology.

The California-based company, which runs its Indian operations from Chennai, has decided to bundle over 35 existing integrated web applications with mobile applications and offer the software at a price of Rs 1,000 (around $16) per month per employee.

Called Zoho One, the package allows businesses to acquire customers, run operations and provide tools to enable employees work collaboratively through productivity applications.

"Zoho One has been in the works for over 10 years and we wanted to provide an entire operating system for businesses. With our pricing, we are hoping to set a new benchmark. Enterprises today rely on multiple vendors, thus ending up paying more than hundreds of dollars per employee per month. With Zoho One, the costs are expected to go down," Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho, said at the launch of Zoho One.

Over 300 organisations have already signed up before the formal launch today.

Vembu added that Zoho's offering is different from the current crop of software solutions for businesses, marked by traditional vendor pricing strategies such as upgrades, multi-year contracts and user restrictions.

"Zoho One includes all Zoho business applications, along with mobile, native apps and extensions. We will expand the number of applications along with adding more languages," said Vembu.

The subscription price set for India is lower than Zoho's other major markets such as America, Britain, Australia and China as part of its effort to acquire more businesses in the country.

"At present, the US is the largest market for Zoho and India is among the top five. Over the next five years, we expect India to emerge as the second-largest market for the company," said Vembu.

He added that the company was planning to expand to Mexico, Brazil, Southeast Asia and West Asia.

Industry estimates suggest that small and medium businesses could spend around $25 billion by 2020 to become digitally enabled. A significant part of the spending is on account of the introduction of the goods and services tax.

This will provide the business scope for software as service providers.